


lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 15:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10834563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: a retelling of 2.1 and the aftermath of 4.3, except in space and 100% less heterosexual, because, as we all know, no one is straight in space





	lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the tumblr prompt "value me- one character telling another how they feel about them"
> 
> The space verse is some kind of crossover between Star Wars, Star Trek, and Mass Effect, which doesn't affect the actual plot or anything, but it does affect some of the jargon I throw in for worldbuilding flavor.
> 
> Title from Awake My Soul by Mumford and Sons

“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Cassius said, once the door to the outer room of Brutus’s apartment had slid closed behind the last of the conspirators and he removed the helmet of his spacesuit. Wearing it through the corridors of the Citadel, several floors away from the nearest non-emergency airlock, had drawn some strange glances, but it was better that than letting someone see his face and connect him to the others to what they were planning.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

Cassius shrugged. “You choosing to do the right thing is hardly a surprise.”

“Is that so,” said Brutus flatly. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with the message I received earlier tonight.”

“Oh?” Cassius said, feigning polite surprise, though he might have overdone it slightly, because Brutus continued to look supremely unimpressed. “What message?”

“A private forum post, all participants hidden behind anonymous user ID’s, the thread itself encrypted, and whoever linked me to it sent it through three different proxies. Whoever sent it wanted me to think that at least three people believe that I should be the one to free them from what they call ‘the tyranny of Caesar.’”

“Interesting,” Cassius said. “What do you mean, ‘wanted you to think?’ I should think that’s fairly conclusive evidence, but you don’t seem to believe it. But then again, you’re here with us now.” He allowed himself a hopeful smile, but stopped short of resting his hand on Brutus’s shoulder.

“I am,” Brutus said, “but because I decided for myself, not because of the supposed opinion of anonymous commenters.”

“Is that so,” said Cassius, raising an eyebrow, still trying to seem interested, but not too interested. “You still haven’t told me what the message contained?”

“Nothing that would be news to you, I’m sure,” said Brutus, “considering that all it did was paraphrase things that you’ve already said to me.”

“If you’re trying to imply something,” Cassius said, lowering his voice and stepping closer, which had everything to do with not being overheard and nothing to do with how being in Brutus’s presence made him feel off-balance, light-headed, almost intoxicated, “you may as well say it outright.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying that the gesture, though flattering, was unnecessary, and that whoever put so much effort into fabricating the appearance of public support was not as subtle as they thought they were, and also too clever for their own good.”

“Perhaps they just feared that you were too honorable for yours.”

“Is that what you think of me?” said Brutus, quietly, like it was a trap. Or a test. Or possibly he just didn’t want their fellow conspirators across the room to hear them over the hum of the engines and the gentle whir of the life support systems. There was something to be said for the constant buzz of machinery to provide some privacy despite the ever-present surveillance cameras.

“You know what I think of you.”

“Do I?” Brutus said. “You must think I am a fool, then, that I would fall for this. Or that I have no conscience, that I would need to be convinced, and no honor, that this flattery is what would sway me.”

His throat was dry, and he couldn’t meet Brutus’s eyes, but staring at his lips instead was even worse. “You know that’s not how I feel.”

“Do I?” Brutus said again. “Then tell me you’re not just using me to fulfill your own agenda. Tell me you care about the future of this place, or the greater good, or about what you think is best for me. Just tell me that, and let it be true.”

Cassius was silent for a moment, and then he closed his eyes and sighed and said, “I would not do this without you. I need you on my side.” He could have said _I need you by my side_. Or even just _I need you_. Any of those would have been true, but what he actually said could have been interpreted as political, as him needing him as an ally. As if they didn’t both know that he didn’t differentiate between personal and political the way Brutus did. As if his personal friends weren’t also his political allies, and as if he didn’t hate his political enemies in a way that was intensely personal. As if Brutus wasn’t the only one who could still care about Caesar as a person while agreeing that he needed to die for the good of the Republic.

Brutus looked almost disappointed, but he said, “I believe you.” And then Cassius, who would never actually confess feelings without being pressed to it, possibly at gunpoint, was the one who was disappointed.

\---

The plan could have, admittedly, gone better, but Caesar was dead and that should have been what mattered. But instead there had been Antony’s speech broadcasted from every holoscreen on the planet, and the hastily arranged shuttle to carry them off-world, and Brutus and Portia kissing and holding each other tightly like they would never see each other again, and Portia reminding him that she had to stay behind, she was still a member of the Senate, she still had her people and her family and _Rome_ to think of, and Cassius watching half with impatience and half with longing until finally he could take it no more and reminded Brutus that their escape could not be stalled indefinitely. And then there had been the battles, the near-death encounters, hopping from planet to planet begging for shelter, money, troops, weapons, anything, until Antony and Octavian combined their fleets and caught up to them and there was nowhere else to run.

Their ships were locked together for the night, or what had been agreed upon as night, since in space that concept had become more of a social convention than an actual necessity. The most recent scouting report said that Octavian and Antony had their forces amassed on the far side of the nearest moon, and that their combined numbers were more than anything Cassius and Brutus could possibly hope to match. All of this meant that while Cassius could have gone back to his own ship and sealed himself inside his own cabin to look over the charts and the weapon and armor statistics that would become relevant all too soon (the asteroid belt that limited their movement on one side and would hinder their retreat, the strength of the extra plating on his ship’s hull that would be meaningless if the rumors were true and Octavian had both a tractor beam and a thanix canon, the statistical possibility that another set of rumors were true and Octavian was Force-sensitive, as much as Cassius scoffed at the idea) it would have been slightly too obvious to everyone on both ships that he was isolating himself deliberately in an attempt to avoid Brutus.

In his defense, what else were you supposed to do after an argument with someone in which you told them that if they really cared about you so little, they might as well murder you with your own phaser, immediately followed by the discovery that the reason they lashed out at you was that they were repressing all of their grief over the death of their wife, which meant that you were overreacting and needlessly escalating the situation?And then, just to make things worse, there was the fact that he had all but confessed to being in love with him, and could only hope that Brutus was so distracted by the argument and his grief to have noticed.

But that was the easy way out, and if Brutus insisted on going forward with the attack, this could be their last night alive, and he shouldn’t waste it hiding away in his cabin. Which was what brought him back to door of Brutus’s cabin, hand hovering above his door, trying to figure out what to say before he knocked. And then the door slid open, and he jumped back and tried to act casual, as if he had just happened to be walking down that corridor by chance, but the person who emerged and almost ran into him was Lucius, not Brutus.

Lucius looked almost as surprised as Cassius felt, and he swerved to avoid running into him, blinking sleepily and saluting, and said, “Sorry, sir, didn’t expect to see you there.”

Before he could leave, Cassius said, “Is your general inside?”

“No, sir. He just left.”

“Are you just saying that because he told you to and he just doesn’t want to be disturbed, or is he actually gone?”

“He’s actually gone, sir. And before you ask, no, he didn’t tell me where he going. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be very important, probably preparations for tomorrow’s attack.”

“Thank you, corporal, that will be all.” Lucius saluted again and ran off, probably hoping to get away to get some sleep before anyone else tried to ask him anything.

Cassius waited for him to get out of sight before sighing, half disappointed and half relieved, and walking away, casting one last glare at the blank expanse of the closed door.

And then he ran into Brutus in the airlock between their ships and was too caught off guard to do anything but nod in greeting and keep walking, but Brutus grabbed his arm as he went past. “I was looking for you,” he said, “but your aide said you’d gone to see me. I assume there’s something important you had to ask me?”

Cassius froze, not pulling his arm away. “Sort of,” he said. “But you were looking for me? Did you want to ask me something?”

“Perhaps it would be better to discuss in private,” Brutus said.

“Your place or mine?” said Cassius, and then cursed himself. _Stop flirting with him_ , he told himself sternly. _His wife just died. You had an incredibly messy break-up with his sister. Partially because you never actually liked her and you were dating her to have an excuse to be near him, and she knew it._

_But then again_ , he argued, _what were you going to his cabin to tell him, if it wasn’t how you feel? Some vague bullshit about how glad you are to have known him?_

“We’re probably closer to yours here,” Brutus said, either completely missing the innuendo or choosing to ignore it. As he usually did.

\---

No sooner had the door slid closed behind him than Brutus said, “So what did you want to speak to me about?”

“You first,” said Cassius, clearing discarded pieces of his spacesuit off the chairs on either side of his desk so that they could sit, close enough to each other that he could see the dark circles under Brutus’s tired, bloodshot eyes. “Actually, why are you even here? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“You aren’t sleeping either,” Brutus pointed out.

“Go get some rest,” he said, instead of admitting that Brutus had a point. “Whatever you have to say can wait, until the morning at least.”

Brutus shook his head. “I can’t sleep.” He leaned forward, opened his mouth like he was going to say more, and evidently decided against it, looking across at Cassius, looking not just tired, but more vulnerable than he had ever seen him.

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “I saw Caesar,” he said, his voice barely stronger than a whisper. “I know it was probably just a dream but… it was like a hologram, or a Force ghost, larger than life, at the foot of my bed.”

“So either a dream or a really fucked-up prank.”

“It’s not funny,” he snapped. “He’d said he was waiting for us.”

“You’re just nervous about the battle,” Cassius said, too quickly to be reassuring, and he knew it. “Completely understandable. If anything, all the more reason for us to hold off on our attack.”

Brutus shook his head. “I don’t think it matters if we attack tomorrow, or if we wait a month. I think… I think this might be it. This is meant to be the end.”

“What the fuck,” Cassius said. “I know I complain constantly about your faith in the Force, but now is probably not the best time to be abandoning it.” He laid a hand on Brutus’s arm, hesitantly, carefully, like moving too quickly would shatter whatever peace had settled between them after the fight. “You don’t sound like yourself, and that worries me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, laying his other hand on top of Cassius’s, holding on tight enough to anchor them both in place. “For burdening you with this. something about keeping my melancholy to myself, grief making me irrational again. And for ignoring your advice and ordering the attack to begin tomorrow that will probably lead to our deaths.”

“And I’m sorry for who I am as a person,” Cassius said, shrugging, like it was a joke, “but if this might be our last night alive, let’s not waste it on apologies.”

“Then what do you suggest we do with it?”

The correct answer was sleep. If they wanted to have any chance of surviving, they weren’t going to get it sleep-deprived. But Brutus was right. Cassius didn’t want to believe but he had the same sinking feeling that this was going to be the end no matter what they did. So he leaned forward and bridged the space between them with a kiss.

“I should have told you,” he said, softly, whispering the words against his lips. “So many times, I should have told you how I felt.”

“I was waiting,” Brutus said, just as softly. “Until I thought I was wrong, and I didn’t want to- I don’t know. I should have told you everything, how I felt, how important you were- you are- to me. Your advice, your support, your presence.” He laughed, like Cassius hadn’t heard him laugh in months, the laugh that only he or Portia had ever been able to surprise out of him, and if Cassius hadn’t been in love before. Well. “Look at us. Since when am I the one for flattery?”

“It isn’t flattery if you mean it,” Cassius said, urgently, kissing him again like that would prove his honesty, punctuating his words with kisses brushed across Brutus’s cheek and pressed against his neck. “And I meant every word I said to you. When I said that I believed in you, when I said that you were the only person who could fix this fucked up mess of a galaxy, when I said that you were the best of us all and that you deserved to survive and be happy with your wife in a republic that was worthy of you.” He paused, looking into his eyes, feeling incredibly sappy and going ahead with what he was going to say anyway. “When I said that I loved you.”

They were so close now that their foreheads were resting together, and Brutus smiled fondly and said, “You haven’t said that yet.”

“Maybe you just weren’t listening,” Cassius said, and they were so close, he could hardly speak, could hardly breath, could hardly even think.

“I’m listening now.”


End file.
